Latest Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Stories

Genetic analysis of DNA obtained from a 45,000-year-old modern human thigh bone has allowed researchers to narrow down the time frame in which mating first introduced Neanderthal genes into the human gene pool.

A multinational team of scientists led by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology has sequenced nuclear and mitochondrial DNA extracted from the leg of an early modern human found in the Tianyuan Cave near Beijing, China.

A new study from the University of Cambridge finds that the DNA similarities between Neanderthals and modern humans are more likely to have arisen from a shared common ancestor than from interbreeding.